1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to fluidic fluids containing water, surfactant, hydrocarbon, and optionally cosurfactant and/or electrolyte. Lamellar micelles are present in the composition.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The art of fluidics uses the flow analog of electricity to develop fluid systems analogous to those used in electronics. That is, pressure drop is made analogous to electrical potential, flow rate is made analogous to current, and viscosity of the fluid becomes analogous to the resistance in the electrical circuit. Such systems are frequently referred to as fluid amplifiers, counters, etc. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,327,726 and 3,451,409 teach devices wherein a fluid power stream is controlled by one or more jets having lower pressures than the power stream. The power streams may be deflected towards and away from a receiver port to provide pressure changes therein substantially greater than the control jet pressure, hence the term fluid amplifier. By and large the art has employed air and other gases to obtain rapid pressure variations to perform control functions by inexpensive components with little or no use of electrical or electronic elements. Such systems have the capability of operating in temperature conditions which cannot be tolerated by electronic components.
Another advantage of fluidic controls is a high level of reliability over a long life attributable, to a large measure, to the lack of mechanical moving parts. This potential has been difficult to fully realize in many instances, particularly where air has been employed as the motive fluid. Over a period of time it has been found that the fluid amplifier characteristics and to change so that, for example, a fluidic control circuit having a counting function will fail to count all of the input pulses thereto. On the other hand, the use of liquid motive fluids, in such fluidic systems has not proved advantageous chiefly due to the high viscosity of liquids relative to those of gases.
Applicants have discovered the use of novel fluidic fluid compositions which have the properties of both high and low fluidity. That is, under some conditions of flow, the liquid will behave as a gas, i.e., the composition appears to have no resistance to flow while, under other conditions, the liquid will behave as a viscous liquid. In the gaseous regions, the liquid viscosity will be very low, while in the liquid regions, a high viscosity will be experienced. This phenomenon will hereinafter be referred to as retro-viscous behavior. The existence of such behavior in a fluid suggests many applications of the flow analog of electricity to fluidic systems. For example, the retro-viscous property can be used in fluidics to create fluid devices whose operating characteristics are analogous to those electrical devices whose current-voltage curves are characterized by one or more breakover voltages such as those for the silicon controlled rectifiers taught by the RCA Transistor, Thyristor & Diode Manual. That is to say substantially large increases in flow rates can be realized at very small pressure increases and vice versa.
This retro-viscous behavior is exhibited by micellar systems whose micelles generally have axial ratios of at least 3.5. Micelles are well known in the art. Both oil-external and water-external micellar dispersions (this term includes microemulsions, micellar solutions, etc.) are taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,254,714, to Gogarty et al; 3,497,006 to Jones et al; 3,506,070 and 3,507,071 to Jones. These dispersions generally exhibit a decrease in viscosity upon increase in flow rate.